mediamatic like RFID

From telling you whether you are a cow, deer or wolf, dependent on what words you have put on your profile, to the ik tag which lets you post pictures to your profile whilst at an exhibition without all that annoying logging on typing, mediamatic love RFID.



The ik tag is specially designed for exhibitions, allowing the user to access their social network account without actually having to use a computer in the traditional sense (typing stuff in).

MN new site made me go...

mmmmMNWAAAHHAHAHHAAAaaaaaa.

nnngggaaaa.

na.


looooook at all the neeeeeewwwssss.

wordpress.

It feels like blasphemy saying that word on blogger. But one day I shall be leaving this beloved blog behind, on moving onto a better domain.

It has definitely made me come to the conclusion that I am not a web designer. Ideas in head do not come onto screen easily. I probably just need to practice a bit more but yes, time is of the essence.

So I've installed wordpress and tinkered around in it's PHP files, tried to get my head around it and make it look like how i want it to.

here's my progress:



I wanted pixels. They came out as boxes. I couldn't decide on colours at this stage, but I was mostly concerned about getting my head around it.



Not much changed here, but I like that gradient. ^_^ mmm... colours.



I tried to work on this idea a bit more, with DIRTY brushes in photoshop. But I still wasn't really happy.

So I've resignated myself to just using a good looking template. I'm going to try to customize it a bit but I think it's the way forward.

meet drip

the slightly strange looking, RFID tagged wooly raindrop.



Inside his lovely wooly exterior is an RFID tag that when placed on the Mir:ror tells you what the weather is like in Norwich. Because Norwich is cool. I would like him to bring up places where it is raining, but unfortunately until i get my hands on another RFID reader, probably this one, with one of these, i'm stuck in the mir:ror's interface and way of doing things. Also the RFID reader i'm thinking of getting is discussed in Tom Igoe's "Making Things Talk", so hopefully getting it doing what i want it to do should be relatively simple.

I've actually had to re-teach myself how to knit, in order to make little drip. I thought that it would be quite nice if the objects are reminiscent of the clothes worn in that weather, and it also makes it more approachable. Technology is less scary when it's hidden behind a nice wooly jumper.

progress...

slow and painful, till i get my loan through and get my hands on more shinyness.

i've been working more on my little buzz buzz, which detects light and buzzes away happily, but doesn't want to detect light and then let that determine wether or not it buzzes. annoying. it seems pretty simple it my mind but all the scripts i've tried don't work, and i can't find anything online...

here's the basic one i've started out with...


//if there is light, vibe.

int pins[] = { 9, 10,}; // an array of pin numbers
int num_pins = 6; // the number of pins (i.e. the length of the array)
int ledPin = 13; // LED is connected to digital pin 13
int sensorPin = 0; // light sensor is connected to analog pin 0
int sensorValue; // variable to store the value coming from the sensor


void setup()
{
int i;

for (i = 0; i < num_pins; i++) // the array elements are numbered from 0 to num_pins - 1
pinMode(pins[i], OUTPUT); // set each pin as an output

pinMode(pins[i], OUTPUT);
pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT); // sets the ledPin to be an output
Serial.begin(9600); //initialize the serial port
digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH); // turn the LED on
}

void loop()
{

int i;

sensorValue = analogRead(sensorPin); // read the value from the sensor
Serial.println(sensorValue); // send that value to the computer


if (sensorValue == 'HIGH') {

digitalWrite(pins[i], HIGH);
}
else {
digitalWrite(pins[i], LOW);
}


}


there are several other variations that FAIL.

making a buzz buzz

I a currently working on another little prototype, this time playing with light sensors and vibe boards, to make a little critter that buzzes around when there's enough light. i'm not sure if anything in my final piece with behave in this way, but i want to see how useful light sensors and vibe boards are.

so far all i've done is make a simple circuit, and run the program from this tutorial.



I've got the light sensor working, now i just need to get the vibe boards vibe-ing away and i will have a BUZZ BUZZ.

boredom + RFID tagging =

RFID bracelet!

It's awesome but i'm not sure what to program into it. at the moment it simply brings up blogger as i really should blog a bit more, and tells my boyfriend that he's sexy, in a mister muggles voice.

Productive.

makes me feel all warm and fuzzy

i has a sketchbook

look at iiiiit.

that's EXACTLY what i'm on about

"1. Screens are getting boring. It's really hard to impress anyone with stuff on a screen any more. However clever you've been. However much thought you've put in. However good the tech is. No-one's impressed. They've all seen better stuff in ads and movies anyway - when will onscreen stuff be as good as that? Whereas doing stuff in the real world still seems to delight and impress people. Really simple stuff with objects looks like magic. Really hard stuff with screens still just looks like media.

2. There are a lot of people around now who have thoroughly integrated 'digitalness' into their lives. To the extent that it makes as much sense to define them as digital as it does to define them as air-breathing. ie it's true but not useful or interesting.

3. The stuff that digital technologies have catalysed online and on screens is starting to migrate into the real world of objects. Ideas and possibilities to do with community, conversation, collaboration and creativity are turning out real things, real events, real places, real objects. I'm not saying that this means that these things are therefore inately better, or that the internet has 'come of age' or any of that nonsense. I just mean that there are new, interesting things going on IRL and that they have some advantages (and penalties) that don't apply online."

- Mister Russell Davies

Really Interesting Group at This Happened

trying to answer the "but why?" question...

It's so frickn' horrible and it turns up whenever I do or think of doing anything. It doesn't appear in my own mind, instead it waits a few weeks and then shows up when i've gotten into whatever it is that I'm doing, and makes me feel like I actually have no understanding of what it is I'm doing.

So why do i do any of this?

a. It's cool.

Apparently this isn't enough of an answer. Although it's true.

b. Innate impulse

I tend to just mind-puke all this stuff up.

c. There is a point

Actually. I think there is. I think there's a point to taking stuff out of the screen. I want to not only bring tactility to the online world, by bringing it into the real world in the form of uber clever objects, but I want to show all the masses of data that is hidden away in the internet. So much stuff is hidden away in boxes and only visible on screens. This is boring. And if you're not staring at a screen you have no way of knowing it's there.

I'm not saying that the web is completely not interactive, or made up completely of fake interactions, I'm saying that the majority of these interactions are plain, old fashioned and boring. They feel too ethereal, and un-real.

I want to bring some reality and feeling to it by putting it into objects.



Yes. I said it. The internet is boring.

my problem...